“If the scenes for next week’s episode are any indication, I know what next week’s song is going to be, and Thomas Dolby fans do, too.”

Lo, I was a prophet, of the painfully obvious variety. After all, it’s hard to misinterpret the launching of torpedoes.

There is a scene in the 1990 movie “Flatliners,” where Jack Bauer himself has convinced a group of his friends to try an experiment where they are technically dead for a short period of time in order to see what is on the other side. Once they’ve all tried it, he states the obvious: “Somehow we’ve brought our sins back physically. And they’re pissed.”

This is exactly what happened in the final 10 minutes of “24” this week.

“24” is a show that is famous for forgetting its back doors (or loose threads, depending on your point of view), but this time, they had the Chinese and the Russians crashing the party – literally, in the case of the latter, courtesy of the impeccably timed, impossible to actually time, and now terribly cliché no-look car collision – within minutes of each other. We discover that The Crow is much more beholden to the Chinese than he led anyone to believe, and as a man without loyalty, he didn’t think twice of designing a device that could take over any major weapons program on the planet. In the end, his intentions were rather naïve; if I post the access to said device online, and anyone could access the world’s arsenal, he argued, how powerful would the bombs really be?

Powerful enough to still sink a battleship, and plunge the US into war with China, fool. Hell, every country with a beef could wipe their enemy off the planet, and set up literally anyone for the fall. Did he really think no one would be seduced by that, least of which the fucking Chinese, who have as a big of a grudge as anyone in the “24” universe?

The Crow ends the episode with a bullet in his head. We’d say that he got off easy, but he did have to suffer the shot to the leg in order to get Chloe to cooperate (?), so there’s that, I guess. Either way, dead is dead.

”If we do this show again, I’m putting a rider in my contract that grants me $1,000 every time I make this pose.”

Of course, Big Dick Heller doesn’t yet know that Chinese fugitive and longest living EOB (Enemy of Bauer) Cheng Zhi is the one who set this up – hell, no one knows this, outside of Chloe and Cheng’s minions– so the next hour is going to be crucial. Is it wrong of me to fantasize about one of these seasons of “24” ending in an all-encompassing nuclear assault that kills 98% of the world’s population and leaves the survivors envying the dead? You have to admit, that would be kind of cool to see from a show that has bent more rules of logic and physics than one can count.

Ah, but all this talk about nuclear subs and Russians and Chinese rebels distracts from the week’s best moment, which is the cracking of Navarro. They made a point of making sure we knew that he was Special Ops, and therefore immune to interrogation, but Jack sees an angle that can be exploited: the wrath of a woman scorned. He sets up a takeover scenario in which Kate, whose husband was convicted of the crimes that Navarro committed, is about to blow Navarro’s head off, and only the “unstable” Jack is there to stop her. Navarro squeals like a pig, revealing the code to the tracker on the override device before Kate or Jack end him, at which point Jack says to no one, “Did you get that?” Yes, they got that, and Navarro just lost all of his leverage. Enjoy your execution, though don’t be surprised if they deliver you to one of those states that goes cheap on the training of the people responsible for killing you “humanely.”

And as great as that was, the best part took place beforehand when Jack said to Ritter, after discussing his upcoming interrogation of Navarro, “Just so we’re clear, I wasn’t asking permission. That was me being polite,” bumping Ritter’s shoulder as he walked past. Like a fucking BOSS.

Now it’s time to bring everything full circle with tonight’s video. This is a live clip of Thomas Dolby playing the song upon its release, and as primitive as it may look, this was positively cutting edge at the time. Dolby may have only had one Top 40 hit in the US, but don’t feel sorry for him: he played a significant role in the creation of polyrhythmic ringtones (you’re welcome). In the words of our colleague Will Harris, Dolby is one of the few people who has enough money to have Oprah killed.

Two hours left. And damn it (*takes drink*), they’re shaping up to be some of “24’s” finest. I gotta say, I did not see that coming.

Fairly impressed with the way things are wrapping up here with the Chinese and Russians poking up their heads at the most inopportune time (from Jack’s POV anyway). Audrey’s husband has to be shitting bricks realizing that he gave up Jack to the Ruskies before the dust had finally settled.

The body count is certainly piling up. Kind of refreshing when the show doesn’t have to keep all the interesting characters alive for future seasons.

I hope the final shot of the series is Jack and Kate curling up by a fire in a log cabin somewhere deep in the Colorado woods. Maybe with a couple of dogs and a bottle of bourbon.